


Rescue Me

by DHS



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek is a cabin kind of guy, Genderswapped Laura Hale, M/M, Mentions of Character Death, and stiles just happens to be there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:56:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DHS/pseuds/DHS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Derek and Stiles somehow build a home together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue Me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally going to be a take on Derek’s relationship with Laura if he’d had a brother instead, which is why Laura’s been changed to Laurent. And then it completely got away from me and became a fic about feels. So I’m sorry for a seemingly pointless gender-swap.

The thing about big brothers is that you look up to them, always. They’re your mold, your guidance. Sometimes, moreso than your parents. 

The thing about losing big brothers, is that it leaves you floundering.

Derek brushes a thumb through the dust over his only framed picture of Laurent. It’s been a year exactly today. The pain is still as fucking fresh as it was the first time he saw his body split in half.

Stiles shuffles into the house and peers over his shoulder, then clears his throat. “It doesn’t always hurt so much,” he says quietly, like he’s almost ashamed to admit it.

Derek lets the picture drop to hang loosely in his hands and dips his head to stare at the scorched floorboards. He doesn’t know what to say, how to react to someone who knows what this feels like. “I miss him most, sometimes,” he says, though he doesn’t mean to. He covers his mouth with his hand, though it isn’t so much to keep anything else from slipping out as it is to keep himself from throwing up in front of Stiles.

Stiles comes around him and plucks the frame out of his hands, examining the picture with a single-minded intensity. Derek knows what he sees - it’s him and Laurent years ago. Derek is all smiles as he leans heavily into Laurent’s shoulder. Stiles doesn’t mention how happy he looks, instead he says, “You’re wearing color here. You dress more like him now.”

That’s because it’s Laurent’s jacket, Derek thinks.

“It gets better,” Stiles says. Same meaning, different words. He looks earnest, though. If anyone would know, it’s Stiles.

Derek can’t take it though. He deflects. “That’s the gay slogan.”

Stiles shrugs. “Works for that, too. We don’t need to have that talk, too, do we?”

Derek snorts. “No, Stiles. I’ve been out for years now. I’m over it.”

“Good, goo- wait.” There’s this beautiful moment, where Stiles entire body freezes, but Derek can see that fantastic mind working behind his eyes. Connecting dots, replaying the conversation. Rewind, rewind, ding. “You’re gay?”

Derek hums. “Bi.” 

“… Whaaaaaat,” Stiles looks confused for all of two seconds, and then snaps back to himself. “Whatever, that’s not why I came. I just… wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine, Stiles,” he says. But he doesn’t know if he means it. Stiles must sense that, because he flops down onto the dusty couch next to him. Derek is secretly grateful.

He doesn’t know why he appreciates it so much, because he usually hates when people know his business. It’s nice, though, that someone bothered to remember why today would be difficult. Why he might not be okay. It’s nicer still that this kid with problems of his own would take time out to check on him.

They sit in companionable silence for about ten minutes. Derek’s surprised to find that Stiles can be quiet. He’s still holding the picture, and he’s tracing Derek’s face, and Laurent’s, like he’s comparing them. Derek doesn’t know what he sees, but he watches as Stiles begins to smile, small and private. 

“Come on,” he says suddenly, standing. 

Stiles blinks at him in confusion. “What? Come where?”

“Just come on,” he huffs, walking off towards the back of the house. He steps out through the broken glass of the sliding glass door leading to the yard and hears Stiles’ crunching behind him. It doesn’t take long for Stiles to figure out what they’re heading towards.

“Is that a house?” He gapes.

“Cabin,” Derek shrugs. “For me to live in.”

“You’re building yourself a cabin?” Stiles’ face twists up in amusement, like he’s holding back laughter. “You’re such a mountain man. Why not just restore the house?”

Derek shoves his hands in his pockets and stops near the piles of lumber that are slowly turning into an actual foundation. “I can’t… I can’t change it. I can’t live in that, even if I-“

“Shhhh,” Stiles soothes, holding up his hands calmly. “I get it. It’s okay. Cabin it is.”

Stiles is actually way more help than Derek expected him to be. The kid’s still clumsy, but he learns quickly and doesn’t goof up, much. He babbles quietly to fill the air but doesn’t expect Derek to answer, just kind of moves his mouth like it’s the only thing he knows how to do. Derek hears about lacrosse practice, Greenberg’s failings, Scott’s pre-wolf days when asthma was their most menacing threat, and the Sheriff’s heart condition.

“He had curly fries last night,” Stiles says. “He acts like I can’t tell, but they’re curly fries, Derek. I’d know that smell if I was in a coma.”

The most startling thing about listening to Stiles, though, is how he’ll just slip something about his mother into his rambling. It’s never a heart-spilling revelation just little things like ‘Mom’s favorite icecream was rocky road’ or ‘That garden behind my house? Mom and I did it together.’ They’re the most insignificant pieces of information slid into otherwise normal conversation, but Stiles’ face glows a little bit when he says it. It’s the strangest thing Derek’s ever seen, because it’s not happiness. More like sadness mixed with pride. 

It tilts his world off-balance. 

There’s this moment, where Stiles is so focused on straightening a piece of lumber so Derek can hit it with the nail gun, and it’s quiet for the first time since they started. Derek will blame silence-induced insanity for suddenly saying, “Laurent taught me how to do this. We built a treehouse together.”

Stiles looks shocked for a second, and then he fucking beams. It’s all white teeth and rounded cheeks and crinkled eyes, and Derek lied. This is the most startling thing about Stiles. He feels his axis tilt yet another time today. He actually feels good for telling Stiles something about Laurent, however insignificant. Like sharing a treehouse memory with him was a bandaid over the wound. 

“You’re basing your cabin on experience from building a treehouse?” Stiles asks, and the little shit is making fun of him.

“Shut up,” he scowls, but he knows it doesn’t have the heat it normally would. “I did research.”

“Whatever,” Stiles laughs. “Anything’s better than living in that deathtrap. We’ll build you the swankiest treehouse in Beacon Hills, Sourwolf.”

Derek snorts and fights against the smile that wants to stretch his lips, focusing on their task. Stiles probably sees it anyways, though, if the glint in his eyes and the warm scent of satisfaction in the air is anything to judge by.

They work all through the afternoon, until the sun is just a sliver of light on the horizon, and they manage to get the foundation for all the walls up. Stiles examines their work, looking tired and pleased with sweat soaking his shirt, and then slips off the property as easily as he’d slipped onto it. Alone, Derek has nothing to distract him from his thoughts of Laurent, but he feels different. The sadness is still there, and the loss, but the edge has been blunted so it doesn’t cut quite so sharply. His stomach doesn’t churn with grief like it had this morning, and he surprises himself by being able to fall asleep easier that night. 

That’s not the last of Construction Time with Derek and Stiles (thank you, Stiles), however. It seems like every time Derek starts to fall back into the depression and grief grips him a little too hard, Stiles shows up with a tool box ready to work. They lay down cement, they put up drywall and insulation. They install windows, and Stiles doesn’t mention that none of them point towards the shell of the Hale house. There’s flooring and lights and appliances. There’s a raging battle about the paint color for the den (“You can’t paint your den grey, Derek!” “I’m not painting it orange, Stiles, get over it.”). Stiles is there for every major decision that Derek makes.

There’s also more snippets of information about Stiles’ mom. Derek learns her favorite color (he denies that this is the reason he decides to paint the den maroon), her favorite flower, and her favorite foods. He learns about where she was born and her crazy family. He learns more than he thinks he’s known about anyone outside the pack ever. All the while, he finds little pieces of Laurent falling out of his mouth with alarming frequency, and Stiles actually listens.

When they’re picking out furniture, Stiles picks out a leather couch the exact chocolate brown shade of Laurent’s eyes. When they’re picking out paints, he doesn’t miss that Stiles single-handedly paints the kitchen moss green, Laurent’s favorite color. Stiles listens, and he smiles, and he never says anything but Derek knows he’s making Stiles happy by sharing these things with him. 

The end result of the cabin is actually… really nice. It’s not huge, because it’s only Derek. But its got a spacious den for the pack to hang out in, and its got a good kitchen so Derek won’t have to kill innocent bunnies for sustenance (no really, thank you Stiles). It’s a mix of things that remind Derek of Laurent, and things that remind Stiles of his mom, and this space… it’s suddenly not just his. This isn’t Derek’s cabin.

This is Stiles’ and Derek’s cabin.

They’re stretching the new duvet over Derek’s new bed and everything is new sights and new smells and new new new, and it’s enough to distract Derek from this revelation He might go insane if he stops to consider that he’s just spent months, almost a whole year, building a home with Stiles. 

“So what do you think?” Stiles asks, smoothing out the blanket. “Swankiest treehouse ever, or swankiest treehouse ever?”

“Swankiest treehouse ever,” Derek decides, chuckling. He steps back and puts his hands on his hips. Everything has turned out better than he could have hoped. “Thank you for this.” 

Stiles makes this ridiculous noise, like a horse blowing air or neighing or something and flails his arms.”It was nothing. It gave me something to do.” 

“Still, thank you.”

Stiles stills, watching Derek with a careful eye, and Derek suddenly feels like prey. He wants to run away from that gaze that seems to see too much of him. He barely manages to stop himself, especially when Stiles moves around the bed and closest the space between them. “It’s been good, right? This has helped?” Stiles asks.

Derek’s mouth dries up. He nods weakly. 

Stiles smiles again, that wide grin that knocks Derek’s feet out from under him. “Good,” he breathes, and then he leans forward and presses his lips to Derek’s.

It’s soft and sweet and it wrenches this small, desperate noise from what feels like the center of his soul. He presses back into the kiss, wraps his hands around Stiles’ hips to pull him closer, and again the world shifts under his feet.

He made this with Stiles. Made this house made this bond between them. Made every inch of the healing that has wrapped him up and made everything hurt a little bit less. They’ve done this together with their hands and their sweat and their motivation, and he couldn’t imagine saying no to it all. 

He pulls back from the kiss, out of breath from just that small, sweet contact, and rests his forehead against Stiles’. Stiles grins at him, his eyes crinkled up happily in the corners, and the look in his eyes is so affectionate that it warms Derek from his toes up. 

It’s not enough to reverse what happened, or bring back what’s been lost. It’s not even enough to heal either of them completely. But it’s enough to make it livable, because they can do this together.


End file.
